In my last post, I wrote about the beliefs and mental barriers that people have about making their dream become a reality. In this sense, I focused on their internal world. In this article, I am going to address the dreamer’s external world; namely, the dream crushers – the people in your life that can and sometimes will kick you off course – and I am gong to provide you with one key strategy to deal with them.

1. Who Are Your Dream Crushers?

Most dream crushers are, despite their negative attitude toward your dreams and goals, are well-meaning people. They tend to be people that you respect and because you respect them, they tend to have the most impact on your dreams. See, if a random person rejected your dream, it might hurt a little but you soon forget about it and move on. On the other hand, when your family, friends, and even your spouse tell you your dreams are not possible, you have a much higher chance of giving up.

Now they might not tell you directly that your dreams are not possible, but they will probably say things like:

• “You’re working too hard”
• “You’ve become anti-social.”
• “You don’t make time for us anymore.”
• “Live your life, you’re too young (or too old or you’re a woman) to be spending your time doing this”
• “Everyone else is having fun except you.”

And while it might be easy to shrug off these comments when you read them on here, it’s nevertheless much more challenging to let go when your closest friends and family tell you these things in person. But you must be prepared.

And I was prepared when people told me it can’t be done.

Very few people supported my goal of writing 90,000 words in 90 days. Many said, “it’s just not worth the effort” and “you’ll be wasting your time.” They even told me, “there’s something wrong with you.” But I didn’t listen. I was absolutely convinced that I was doing what’s necessary to achieve my dream and I was determined to not let anybody stop me. In fact, I was so determined to take on this particular challenge that in the past three months I turned down 3 major job offers and 1 business offer. I turned them down because they weren’t aligned with my vision for who I wanted to become. I easily could’ve postponed working on my dream and taken up one or two offers to make quick money, but I chose not to. I chose not to because I was no longer going to put my dream on the back burner. I’ve had enough.

When close friends and family learned about this, they couldn’t grasp what I was doing. Some of them felt bad for me, and others were angry at me. “How could you turn down these job offers, do you know how hard it is to get a job these days?” But I held my ground. I made a conscious decision not to pursue anything in my life that wouldn’t help me advance my dream even if there was good money to be earned from doing it. And I’ve kept this promise.

Tip #1. Don’t pursue random opportunities for money’s sake. If you do so, you will never have enough time to work on your dream and reach the financial goals you have for yourself.

2. Changing Others is a Zero-Sum Game

As people begin working on their dreams, they sometimes make the mistake of trying to justify and explain to others why their dream is worthwhile. Doing so and trying to “prove” to them that your dream is possible will not do you much good.

In fact, the harder you try, the more they will believe it’s not possible. Please realize that, on the one hand, your friends and family are afraid it won’t work out for you. They’re afraid that you might fail, and so they want to stop you from disappointing yourself. On the other hand, the values you constantly speak about such as “hard work,” “consistency,” and “going after the life you desire” are hard for them to accept because if they have to believe in your dream, they have to believe that dreams require “hard work,” and that’s not part of their value system. Your family and friends probably made conservative choices throughout their lives, and so they have safe jobs that they’re content with. Moreover, they built a life around those jobs and so they’re as heavily invested in their value system as you are. So stop trying to convince them of your dream. In some way, trying to convince others of your dream is zero-sum game: one of you has to give up, and if that happens it’s won’t end well. If I were you, I wouldn’t play this game.

The strategy that has worked best for me is acceptance. You have to accept, regardless of how you feel about the situation, that that’s who they are and they probably won’t change for you. Accordingly, it would be best to stop talking about your dream. Let them get busy with other things aside from your dream, your goals and your values. See, what many of us dreamers do is that, because we’re excited about pursuing our dreams and we want to share this joy with others, we unconsciously create unnecessary stress for ourselves. We start stressing about why others are not seeing what we’re seeing. Why aren’t they excited for us? You’re better off accepting that most people can’t see your dreams for you and even more people don’t want to deal with the emotional consequences of your failure; if that happens. So recognize that you have to be the mature person in these relationships and stop talking about your dreams with these people.

I’m assuming, however, that you’re invested in those relationships and you find them to be good relationships in general. That’s why I’m suggesting that you stop talking about your dreams instead of completing deserting those relationships. However, if you feel as though the people in your life do not respect you, and they make you feel inferior in some way, then you have to realize that you’re up against a completely different set of obstacles. In such a case, you have two options. First, set clear boundaries as to what you will and will not tolerate. Second, if those boundaries are not respected, then you should have the maturity to realize that it’s time for you to move on and to find relationships that encourage you to flourish.

Tip #2. Reduce stress as much as possible but don’t compromise your values. It’s harder to end a good relationship than to fix one, but if those relationships interfere with your dreams in ways that you can’t stop, then you have to make a conscious decision about staying or leaving.

Finally, if you give in to this kind of pressure, then you will live an unfulfilled life. You will always wonder how things could’ve been different for you. Don’t live a life of regret. Have the courage to follow through on your dreams even if you have to do it yourself. It won’t be long until others realize what you’re really capable of.